PANAMA CITY — Local law enforcement on Friday displayed masks, guns, counterfeit money, narcotics and hash vaporizers from two separate busts over the past two days.
BayCountySheriff Frank McKeithen talked about the two busts from two separate areas of the county at a press conference Friday. The busts, orchestrated with the cooperation of several law enforcement agencies, led to the arrests of five people and the removal of illegal objects and substances from the streets, authorities said.
In the counterfeiting case, BCSO arrested Brandon Varnadoe, 26; Michael Adam Shiver, 47; and William Robertson, 32, Friday morning after deputies discovered firearms, masks, narcotics, counterfeit bills and counterfeiting equipment in two rooms of the Wyndham Bay Point Resort, 4114 Jan Cooley Drive, Panama City Beach.
Deputies reportedly responded to a call from hotel security about a suspicious person. Upon their arrival, a K-9 unit detected marijuana in a suspect’s car, which allowed deputies to attain search warrants to the rooms where they found evidence of counterfeiting operations, a handgun and a mask, McKeithen said.
“We find the mask and we find this together,” McKeithen said, displaying a disarmed handgun. “As law enforcement officers, that worries us to the point that we believe these suspects had other things on their minds.”
Deputies also found several hundred dollars worth of counterfeit bills in various stages of manufacture and arrested the three men for possession of counterfeit bills and counterfeiting tools.
McKeithen suspected the counterfeit notes would be used in high volume areas, such as restaurant or bars.
Intent to sell
BCSO narcotic units arrested Lynn Haven residents Hoa Nguyen, 32, and Jennifer Nguyen, 33, and charged them with possession of marijuana Thursday afternoon. BCSO seized 130 grams of hash, worth about $7,500, more than 60 grams of marijuana worth about $1,300, and $25,000 in cash at their home of 1610 Belmont Blvd., according to BCSO reports.
A string of car burglaries committed by minors in February led deputies to the Nguyen residence. The minors admitted items from the burglaries were being sold to purchase marijuana and hash, McKeithen said.
“One of them actually still owed $700,” McKeithen said of one teenager’s alleged pot tab.
Along with the evidence seized in the drug bust, an electronic cigarette modified for “hash oil” consumption was among paraphernalia confiscated from the property. McKeithen admitted deputies would have a difficult time discerning electronic cigarettes from their modified counterparts.
“It’s going to be difficult for us to determine if your electronic cigarette is smoking hash oil or blueberry vapor,” he said. “I can tell you right now, we are not going to be stopping people and checking for that, so we’ll go ahead and get that out of the way.”
McKeithen said the two busts were the latest in a string of victories for local law enforcement in the midst of a Spring Break activity surge.
“If we continue to nip these things in the bud like we’re doing, it could be a good year for us,” he said. “If we can’t, it could be a bad year.”
Since Spring Break’s start, McKeithen said, BCSO has seized nine firearms.